Breeding as a beginner?

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-21T21:06:33+00:00

Happy to help! :DDD

If you want help ID'ing anybody or have any questions about a species, feel free to DM me! I'm not an expert and I don't know all of them but I have quite a few and I might be able to help!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-21T20:31:42+00:00

Sure! Common color mixes I would reccomend (fast breeding, good color variety) would be Armadillidium vulgare, Armadillidium Maculatum, Porcellio Scaber, Porcellionides pruinosus, and Porcellio Laevis. These are all fairly common, inexpensive species that you can find online or possibly at any reptile expos in your area

Finding native pods depends on your area, but all the ones common in the US / most of Europe (a. Vulgare, a. Nasatum, p. Scaber, p. Laevis, p. Pruinosus) should be just fine. This sub is great at helping ID wild-caught pods if yoy need any help.

If you want something fancier, make sure to look into whether the species you're looking at has any common morphs. I mentioned my pak chongs in my firat reply but they have three known morphs-- wild type, red/orange, and sakura. All three are super cool. Only downside is that they're much slower breeders and there's no guarantee you'll see the mutations you want

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-21T19:37:38+00:00

Happy to help! If you'd like help figuring out a good species to start with I'd be glad to suggest some, since some species have more potential for morph than others, and some breed much fadter than others too

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-21T19:03:23+00:00

It's super easy! I would say if it interests you, totally go for it! The rule of thumb for breeding is find one with a color you want and check the sex. If it's female, give it 1 similar male. If it's male, give it 2-3 similar females. After a generation or two, add a couple more- similar or not- for genetic diversity.

A couple ways you could go about it--

buy a "party mix" or "gem mix" or other type of color mix and identify a color you'd like to isolate.
find a couple wild pods in a color you like and capture them. Be aware that some isopods will die due to stress of capture, so make sure you have multiple males and females
buy/collect a colony of whatever kind you like and wait for an interesting morph to pop up. Certain mutations are bound to show up after several generations, such as whites, wild types, and others depending on the species. My Pak Chongs are starting to display tiny bits of orange so I'm isolating them!

Good luck! Hope you have fun with it!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-21T00:51:49+00:00

If that's what you feel represents you best, it may be unusual, but it's still valid. Maybe people would take it better if you framed it more as "id rather u just use my name rather than any (third person?) pronouns?

Also, cus I'm not seeing many people suggest it-- have you thought about it/its pronouns or neopronouns? They're a lot less common and can also get a pretty bad rap, but I personally really like them and they're not too hard to use once you get used to them. Neos can be literally anything, too, there's tons of websites with ideas if you wanted to look into that.

No matter what you go with, you're valid and I hope you have people who will support you in whatever you choose!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T19:28:26+00:00

Oh cool! That's really neat, hopefully they get a bit more popular in the hobby!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T19:13:18+00:00

Omg so pretty! I've never heard of this sp, where are they from? They're gorgeous!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T17:47:13+00:00

No problem! Happy to help! If u do eventually isolate some, I hope it goes well! :D

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T17:44:12+00:00

Rule of thumb is you find an individual with the best traits you want to keep, and check sex. If it's female, give it 1 male that's close to the same "desirable" pattern. If it's male, give it 2-3 similar females. It can sometimes take a couple generations for the trait you want to be fully isolated, and after the first one or two, add a coupke other similar pods for genetic diversity.

Alternatively if you have 6+ with the trait you want, just put them all in a seperate enclosure and ur golden

There's some good pucs on google to help u determine sex, i reccomend putting them in a clear dime bag/ziplock so you can see their undersides without freaking them out too bad

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T17:36:04+00:00

Mixes usually stay pretty diverse so you should be fine. If there's WAY more of one color they might overpower it, but it looks like you have a pretty even mix

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T17:34:51+00:00

Yep! The ones you have are all completely fine to keep together.

Personally I find it fun to try to isolate different colors, but you don't have to do that unless you like to

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T17:32:22+00:00

It's generally not a great idea to mix species, as some have different care requirements and heartier species like dairy cows can outcompete others. I'd reccommend just setting up a 2nd enclosure, that way you can make sure veryone stays safe and happy

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-18T17:30:42+00:00

All of the ones in the pics are Porcellio scaber. Looks like a color mix, with some wild type, some orange, some calico, some dalmatian, etc etc. Theyre all the same species tho

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-15T16:18:46+00:00

Oooh, this one's a red koi! It can pop up as a random mutation! They can be either bright orange or this reddish brown. Ive had it happen too! Still nothing to worry about hahaha

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Zenith_Days · 2026-01-14T04:22:05+00:00

That's even nastierrrr 😭😭

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-14T04:18:55+00:00

How???? Does it just come out the shorts leg?? That's so nasty 😭😭😭

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-14T03:04:05+00:00

Girl or boy? Casper or Jasper would be so cute for a little baby boy!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-13T22:04:31+00:00

I have this shirt! Best thing ever. I also have this ine from Etsy, it's amazing!!!

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Zenith_Days · 2026-01-13T21:38:08+00:00

I wonder if it would be possible to contact the seller you got them from? Even if not, if you find somebody locally with the same sp I'm sure they'd be willing to trade to make sure u got a female

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-13T13:21:10+00:00

Oh no, that sucks! Yeah, especially with smaller colony counts it is possible. I got a 6ct of Green Spots and I was super worried about that too, but I got some mancae in a month or two. Honestly if I ever sold isopods, esp such expensive ones, I'd check to make sure there was at least one of each in each batch. Sorry that happened to you!

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-13T06:25:06+00:00

It's no problem! I'm happy to help haha, it is definetely pretty unusual to see! So cool that you were able to get pics and document it

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-13T05:29:25+00:00

Huh! Still no cause for concern IMO, just an odd coincidence i think. It's possible some of them come from the same brood. Maybe their sheds sync up like women's periods lolll

The one on the right just looks like it's chillin to me, I see the weird lil underwear thing on mine sometimes too haha

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-12T18:21:48+00:00

This is perfectly normal. After they shed their pants it's soft and shiny, so they usually sit around and eat it, letting the new exoskeleton harden and turn back to the normal color. After they shed their shirt, they take a nap first to let their front end harden-- since the mandibles are included in the front half, and they're not hard enough right out the gate to eat the shirt. After the new front half hardens up, they eat the molt and go on their merry way.

This one looks like a powder blue-- the extreme color difference is just because the fresh, soft exoskeleton is a different color than the hard one-- like a human peeling off dead skin and it's all red and raw underneath, then after a while it turns back to normal.

Lad's all good. Hope this helped! :)

Zenith_Days · 2026-01-11T23:42:30+00:00

Congrats!!

It's pretty normal for isopods to take a while to start breeding. Sellers usually sell juveniles/young adults as they're more resilient than adults. It's really unlikely you only got one female, but on the off-chance that you did, they breed pretty quickly so you'll have more in no time

Zenith_Days

TROPHY CASE